Costco offers employee scholarships and expands community giving

Costco’s education benefits do not sit off to the side of the business. They are built into the same model that pays hourly workers well, pushes training, and keeps a large share of the workforce on full-time schedules. For employees trying to move from a warehouse shift to a degree, that means the company’s scholarship program is not just a perk, it is part of the path.

What the employee scholarship actually covers

Costco says eligible part-time and full-time U.S. employees can apply for scholarships of up to $2,500 per academic year for as many as four years. That structure puts the maximum benefit at $10,000, and it is designed to help pay for school without forcing a worker to leave the company behind. The program was announced in 2021, and the College Success Foundation administers it on Costco’s behalf.

The foundation says the scholarship is open to regular full- and part-time employees, plus limited part-time permanent Costco workers in the United States and Puerto Rico. It is aimed at a first-time degree at an accredited nonprofit college or university, which makes the benefit especially relevant for employees who are trying to finish a degree while staying on the floor. A front-end assistant, stocker, forklift operator, bakery employee, optical worker, or manager can all fit into that framework if they meet the eligibility rules.

That matters because the scholarship is not framed as a one-off award for a narrow slice of the company. It is built for employees whose schedules already revolve around shifts, school, and family responsibilities. For hourly staff, the practical question is not whether Costco talks about education, but whether the benefit is accessible enough to fit a real work life. On paper, this one is.

Why the scholarship fits Costco’s wider employment model

Costco’s education support sits alongside a broader workplace formula that is unusual in retail. The company says more than 66,000 employees participate in its education, networking and mentorship program, and its annual report says it aims for at least 50 percent full-time employees. Costco also says employees tend to stay longer than average for retail positions because of pay, benefits and training.

Those details matter because they shape how a scholarship works in practice. A benefit like this has more value when workers expect to stay, move up, and build a career rather than cycle in and out. In that sense, the scholarship is less about branding than about retention, especially in a business where labor quality and schedule stability affect everything from checkout lines to department staffing.

For employees, that can change the calculus of taking a class, finishing an associate degree, or starting a four-year program. The company’s pay structure and health benefits already give Costco a reputation for holding onto workers better than many retailers. The scholarship adds a school-to-career bridge on top of that, which is exactly where hourly retail jobs often lose people.

Community giving that reaches schools, families and food banks

Costco’s community spending is just as structured. The company says it budgets 1 percent of pretax profits for selected charitable contributions, and it focuses that giving on children, education, and health and human services. That is not a random list of causes. It maps closely to the same issues that shape whether a worker can keep a family afloat while building a future.

The Volunteer Reading Program is one of the clearest examples. Costco says the program has more than 2,600 volunteers across the United States, Canada and Australia, and more than 70 percent of eligible locations in those countries participate. The program dates back more than 20 years, and older reporting places its start in 1998. Workers involved in it tutor children below grade level for 30 to 60 minutes a week over 10 to 15 weeks, with materials provided by Costco.

That is community work with a labor footprint. It gives employees a way to show up in local schools in a role that is visible, concrete, and tied to the warehouse’s presence in the neighborhood. It also gives managers and supervisors a community-facing program that can improve how a store is viewed outside the loading dock and front end.

Costco’s Backpack Program shows the same approach on a larger scale. The company says it has donated almost 7 million backpacks since 1993. That kind of sustained giving is not just a seasonal outreach line for a company newsletter. It is a long-running support system that reaches the families of the same communities where Costco stores, depots, and warehouses operate.

Food donations are another major piece. Costco says FY25 donations of food and other products from U.S. warehouses and depots to Feeding America totaled more than 140.8 million pounds. For warehouse employees who see pallets move every day, that figure is easy to understand in operational terms: the same supply chain that keeps shelves stocked also moves product into hunger relief.

A local scholarship network with national reach

Costco’s scholarship model is not limited to employees. The Costco Scholarship Fund for the University of Washington and Seattle University has operated since 2000, and by 2026 it had raised more than $96 million and awarded over 2,900 scholarships. The 2026 breakfast was the 27th annual event, and it brought together Costco suppliers, local organizations, employees and supporters.

That fund shows how Costco’s community giving often works through long relationships rather than one-time checks. Suppliers sit at the same table as employees and civic groups, which gives the program a local backbone even as the company’s footprint is national. For workers, it reinforces the idea that education support is part of Costco’s public identity, not just an internal HR line item.

Taken together, the employee scholarship, the reading volunteers, the backpack donations, and the food relief numbers show a company making the same bet in several directions: support education, support families, support the neighborhood, and keep people connected to the job longer. For Costco employees, that means the warehouse can be more than a paycheck. It can also be a route into school, a route into local service, and a reason to stay.